[killtimeatwork]

> Companies who treat code this way aren't software companies, and they ain't gonna stick around for the long-run. They just use software for some end, and given their apparent lack of attention to detail, they will go out of business pretty soon

Most large companies in the world (e.g. banks) have appaling code and coding standards. As far as I know, none of them has yet gone bankrupt because of bad code.

I think we probably overestimate how important code is. The business world, esp. large companies, is very far from perfect (more of a big fat mess that somehow still works and produces money without its products killing people etc.) and it doesn't need perfect code, the same way it doesn t need perfect accounting or perfect product design. In most cases, mediocrity will do, because the competition is just as mediocre.

If you want perfect (or even very good), become a hobbyist instead.

[b0rsuk]

> I think we probably overestimate how important code is.

Or maybe the cost of swamp code is distributed over many people and non-programmers have difficulty understanding how much it slows down programmers. Programming is hard enough as it is because we need to translate human to very abstract, and work with very abstract on a daily basis. I think it's borderline genius to be able to do the translation both ways. That is, to make non-techies really understand the cost of messy code.